I only had like 40 mins of time to pull away today and try to go through this huge list of earnings. Running numbers quickly and trying to distill the best handful. I was checking the moves on everything a few mins ago and saw CSX. I was like oops did I short that? There were two C’s I remembered and I did one of them. But no, was thinking of CMA tomorrow, which is part of my stack. I only had ABT and PNFP for today’s releases. Oh and picked up just a few of the downside UAL you had but kept it really small since I didn’t have time to dig into it myself. Maybe at least we’ll get a good open. So far so good though, although Google won’t show me PNFP’s after hours quote. Looks like earnings was no surprise though, just a mild positive. Good work out there guys! Nice to see some new names recently. Edit - ABT tomorrow morning, still a little off-kilter it seems. SGEN looked like it probably wouldn’t clear all that juice but the one monster move it had recently made me end up passing on it.
Thank you both! I've only been at this a few months, but burning the candle at both ends. Still a lot of learning ahead, so any steer toward the straight and narrow is much appreciated. @TheBigShort - I'm in BK with that long straddle; also got filled for 1.68. Spent most of the day trying to figure out USB, ABT, CMA, and PGR, all of which have ERs tomorrow... nope, my kung-fu still not powerful enough. More reading ahead.
My worst day of the year. @Magic I hope you did better then me. BAC .49 (+.32) UAL 2.00 (+.77) CSX 6.20 (-3.63) ABT 3.49 (-1.09) BK 1.44 (-.24) It was only my worst day as I had open orders on CSX that I forgot to close. When I checked my phone later in the day I was 3x my wanted size! Careless mistake that cost me a couple of trips to Jamaica.
Not a very good day for me either. CMA and ABT were the biggest losers. Still long TXT and a bit of BK so if they run a little I might close in better shape. But this morning looking at -3% on Net Liq averaged over everything. One thing to note on BK that kept me from sizing that big was that I read in a few places higher analyst dispersion kind of kills the chance of a huge move. We need a really big surprise to take off, like PLAY earlier in the year.. I read they got into the habit of issuing really conservative guidance so a bad report is going to be really bad for the stock. Need more experience for higher confidence but I think lower profile releases especially with almost everyone agreed on a certain set of expectations can make the biggest bang for long vol potentially.
Hang in there man. If this was easy we would all be trading from our yachts. We have to learn from our losses, keep our positions small, and live to fight another day.
From a blue-water sailor who does sometimes trade from his yacht (nope, not any easier from there) - I'll add to those fine words of support. You're doing something that most don't have the brains or the guts to do, and you're doing it in daylight, with other people watching; that's hard. Especially when you take a hit, and your mind starts messing with you. Trading successfully over anything but the short term takes character - and a part of that is fully owning your mistakes. But if you're going to do that, then take the time to own your successes as well. During my eighty-seven years I have witnessed a whole succession of technological revolutions. But none of them has done away with the need for character in the individual or the ability to think. -- Bernard M. Baruch Best wishes on getting through the suck. Hang tough.
Thanks for the support guys! Going only Long Vol today. Don't have time do research for the short vol trades. I am long the cheapest straddles on my screen
With you on IBM for the long vol side. Almost pulled the trigger on EBAY as well but it didn’t look quite as good. I grabbed GPC but I was on the fence there too. Think we have a decent chance between the Jump and the move at clearing the premium though. Got a few shorts as well, let’s hope we don’t have a repeat of today, that would be discouraging haha.